NEWS IN BRIEF


Date: 4th July, 2011

PINBALL SHORT STORY

We've all had a bad game of pinball, but there's a bad game, and there's a BAD GAME, and a new short horror story by Robert Gruskiewicz introduces us to the baddest pinball of them all.

Packed with knowing pinball references, Hellball tells the tale of how casual pinball fan Elvis Gallo (there's one reference straight away) buys his first pinball machine - a much coveted Medieval Zaniness - at the Black Orchid (White Rose) Pinball Show at a knockdown price.  However, he gets far more than he bargained for.

Instead of them playing the machine, Elvis and his unsuspecting friends are the ones being played, as a presence within the game comes alive and goes on the attack, drawing the players into the game in assorted gruesome ways.

Author Robert from Temple, PA is himself a pinball fan and has 8 machines of his own, although the machine at the heart of his story is not one of them. 

He was inspired to write a short story after reading about self-publishing through Kindle, as he told Pinball News. "I immediately had a brief idea of doing a pinball story, since they say to write what you know. And, being a Bentley Little fan, I definitely had some influence from his style for the type of horrors that I included. There were some changes from my original idea as it went along, and I think what I produced was a pretty neat story with some fun twists. I am definitely proud of my idea for the resolution, although I certainly won't detail that as it would be a big spoiler."

Although no further pinball-related stories are in the pipeline, if the reaction to his first published work is favourable, Robert said that may encourage him to write a follow-up.

Hellball can be bought through the Amazon Kindle store.  Kindle software is not only for dedicated Kindle readers, it is also available for free for most major platforms such as Windows, Macs, Android, iPhone, Win 7 Phone and iPad.


PINBALL SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITE

Hear the words 'social network' and you probably think of the likes of Facebook or Twitter.  However, a new social networking website has been set up to cater for the specific needs of pinball and gameroom enthusiasts.

Pinaddicts.com includes many Facebook-like features such as personal profiles, a wall on which to write, photos, videos and a chat system, but it adds pinball blogs for members, polls and a links section for the best pinball and gameroom websites (ahem!).

Future plans include the addition of classic video games to play online and live streaming of webcams to broadcast those pinball parties and gameroom shows.

Pinaddicts.com is free, so give it a try and see how it works for yourself.

 

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